How to Unlock 100% of Your EHR's Data—While Doing 90% Less Work

Ask any doctor today about their current EHR systems, and you'll likely get a sigh or a story about how they’re drowning in documentation. While EHRs promised better records and smoother workflows, the reality is that clinicians spend more time documenting than doctoring nowadays. 

But what if EHRs worked with you instead of against you? Imagine if AI could take all those messy doctor notes and instantly turn them into useful information, and there was no extra work needed.

Today, native AI tools are doing just that! By automating the extraction and interpretation of unstructured data, AI is making EHRs not just easier to use but infinitely more valuable. This results in fewer manual chart reviews, more precise patient matches, faster clinical trial enrollments, and more time spent on actual patient care.

How your EHR might be slowing you down

If you’ve ever felt like your EHR is working against you instead of for you, you’re not alone! 

Traditional EHRs were designed around structured data—you know, the information that fits neatly into predetermined categories—like lab results and coded diagnoses? 

But, the reality is that healthcare can be messy, patients are complex, and the rigid architecture of conventional EHR systems can create frustrating bottlenecks when trying to extract meaningful insights from everyday clinical documentation. 

To fully understand why these systems might be holding you back, it’s important to recognize the difference between structured and unstructured data

Structured vs. unstructured data: What’s the difference?

Not all data in an EHR is created equal. 

You can think of structured data like filling out a form with checkboxes and drop-down menus. It includes information like lab values, vital signs, demographics, and diagnostic codes. Basically, it's all of the information that fits neatly into predefined categories. However, while this data is easily searchable and filterable, it only captures 20% of the entire story.

Unstructured data, on the other hand, is where the real insights lie. Physician notes, observations, and social determinants of health capture the nuances of a patient’s condition. While unstructured data contains rich clinical insights, it is notoriously difficult to search, analyze, or use for decision-making.

The real kicker is that nearly 80% of clinically relevant information in an EHR exists as unstructured data. Yet, most systems are built to prioritize structured data, leaving some of the most valuable insights locked away, inaccessible, and unused. Without a way to unlock this information, clinicians are left navigating a system that is ultimately working against them.

The hidden cost of manual chart reviews

How exactly is it working against them? Let’s talk about the reality of manual chart reviews…because if you’ve ever spent hours digging through patient records, you know the struggle.

Clinicians and research coordinators are drowning in documentation, manually reviewing charts to extract critical details. This process is slow, tedious, and oftentimes riddled with human error.

This inefficiency may also bring serious consequences, especially in clinical trials. When patient screening depends on incomplete or hard-to-find information, enrollment can slow from a brisk walk to what feels like a slow crawl. 

Not to mention those high screen failure rates. Although a patient might look like an ideal candidate on paper, critical disqualifying details might be buried deep in their notes, unnoticed until after significant resources have already been spent. And then it costs $19,000 to find a new one.

Beyond research, the impact on day-to-day care can be just as frustrating. Doctors and nurses, already pressed for time, are forced to wade through documentation instead of focusing on their patients. This may cause burnout levels to rise, job satisfaction to plummet, and the cycle of inefficiency to continue. Manual chart reviews aren't just a hassle —but a roadblock to better healthcare. 

The real question is not whether this process needs to change but how can we change it?

Natural Language Processing meets Large Language Models: Welcome to the AI EHR era  

For years, unstructured EHR data has been a goldmine of untapped insights. If only clinicians had the time to sift through it all…

Luckily, AI has begun doing much of the heavy lifting as these tools can now interpret, categorize, and extract critical patient details, making unstructured EHR data usable, searchable, and instantly actionable. Here’s how AI is reshaping the way we interact with medical records today. 

NLP turns physician notes into actionable data

Natural Language Processing (NLP), which teaches computers to understand human language, really took off after Google introduced its Transformer model in 2017. Think of it as a translator that converts doctors' notes into structured, searchable data without losing the nuance.

When applied to EHRs, NLP technology can identify and extract critical information like symptoms, medications, social factors, and eligibility criteria and organize it into a usable format. What once required hours of manual review can now happen automatically. 

Imagine instantly knowing which patients in your practice meet the criteria for a clinical trial without opening a single chart. Sounds pretty useful, right? 

Then LLMs come into the equation

Now, couple that with large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4, Gemini, and Claude, which came on the scene with the GenerativeAI explosion in 2022. LLMs have the capability to completely change the way we handle and process medical records, pushing the limits of NLP by integrating multimodal (text, image, voice) capabilities. 

Today, advanced AI models don’t just read text. They understand it, summarizing complex notes and extracting key patient details without manual effort. Now, clinicians and research teams can access the information they need instantly rather than spending hours combing through records. 

In this case, AI is acting more like a clinical assistant, surfacing relevant details in real time that alleviate manual workflows and ultimately improve clinical decision-making.

GenAI is enhancing EHRs without disrupting workflows

The beauty of Trially’s advanced technology is that it integrates seamlessly into any EHR system without disrupting workflows. With specialized APIs built by the best-in-class Zapier product and engineering leaders, Trially AI can connect in 1 day with virtually any platform, working quietly in the background to analyze unstructured data as it’s created.

By running continuously, AI eliminates extra work for your team, automatically parsing inclusion and exclusion criteria in under five minutes. This means you can get the power of advanced data analysis without changing how your staff documents patient care.

None of this works without security and compliance at the core 

With any new technology in healthcare, data security and regulatory compliance are absolutely essential.  Trially takes this seriously by using industry-leading protections and meeting strict standards like HIPAA, SOC 2, FDA Part 11, and ISO 27001. 

But how do we ensure that your data is safe? We’re happy you asked! 

Each client is given a separate data setup (think of it as having your own private vault), so your patient information never mixes with anyone else's. On top of that, we use gold-standard encryption methods (AES-256 at rest, TLS in transit), detailed audit logs, and multi-factor authentication, adding even more layers of protection. Every interaction is logged, monitored, and secured, meaning that clinicians can still be efficient without sacrificing privacy. 

GenAI’s advantage in clinical trial recruitment

The advantages of Generative AI within the clinical trial patient recruitment cannot be overstated. 

Today, it costs $6500 to recruit ONE patient for a clinical trial by relying on traditional ad-based recruitment methods. Not to mention that it takes months, if not years, to fill enrollment, costing sponsors $600K per day if it gets delayed. 

Even with traditional AI/ML models that don’t sit on a native LLM-based infrastructure, synthesizing protocols and matching them to millions of patient records can take months. 

Today, Generative AI can accomplish the same task in seconds. And the more data the model ingests, the more accurate the model becomes. This means that AI models trained on vast datasets can significantly reduce human error and fatigue, maintaining consistent quality whether reviewing the first chart or the thousandth. 

More importantly, Trially AI can evaluate hundreds of thousands of patient records per minute compared to the 50 or so that a research coordinator might manually review in an entire day.

A recent study published in Nature on TrialGPT, a generative AI framework for patient-to-trial matching, demonstrated just how powerful these models have become. In testing with 183 patients and over 75,000 trial checks, TrialGPT successfully found over 90% of relevant trials while only needing to look at 6% of the available options. When checking if patients met specific trial requirements, it was correct 87.3% of the time. 

The result? Faster patient enrollment, fewer screening failures, and more time for clinical staff to focus on patient care. AI solutions aren’t just improving efficiency but accelerating the future of medicine altogether. 

Turning the EHR burden into clinical trial success with Trially

For too long, EHR inefficiencies have slowed down patient enrollment and drained site resources. 

But what if those same records, often seen as an administrative burden, could become a powerful tool for clinical trial success? With Trially AI, sites can tap into unstructured EHR data, automate patient matching, and eliminate the manual processes that hold trials back.

Here are all the ways Trially sets the standard for EHR recruitment and is transforming clinical trial operations everywhere for our customers. 

Smarter, faster patient enrollment

Finding the right patients for clinical trials has always been a slow, frustrating, and manual process. But Trially’s AI-driven matching technology eliminates that burden by automatically identifying eligible patients from unstructured EHR data, meaning no more endless chart reviews or fragmented searches.

The results? They speak for themselves. Sites using Trially have increased their monthly enrollment rates by 200%, even for complex or “white whale” trials with more stringent criteria. 

Instead of spending days manually sifting through records only to find a handful of candidates, coordinators can instantly identify qualified patients. This allows research teams to focus their outreach on the right participants from the start, further increasing efficiency and improving their bottom line.

Harnessing 5X more EHR value for unmatched precision

We harness 100% of EHR data, including unstructured physician notes, in real time. This comprehensive approach ensures that no relevant patient is overlooked, providing everything from high-quality patient matching across multiple protocols to real-time evaluation of protocol feasibility across sites and the ability to identify new trials based on population data.

By leveraging both structured and unstructured data, Trially provides a level of accuracy that traditional EHR search functions simply can’t match.

Cutting down screen failure rates

Arguably, one of the most frustrating aspects of clinical trials is screen failures. 

You know, when patients who initially seem eligible actually fail to meet all criteria after a closer examination. These failures waste time, money, and resources, not to mention creating a disappointing experience for the patients themselves.

Fortunately, Trially's high-precision matching has reduced screen failure rates by an impressive 60%, dropping from the industry average of 52% down to just 20%. 

How is this possible, you might be wondering? By analyzing the complete patient record, including those unstructured physician notes. With our technology, we are able to catch exclusion criteria that traditional methods miss.

And the financial impact is substantial for our users! When reducing these failures, sites save money while accelerating enrollment timelines, ultimately bringing innovative treatments to market faster. 

Reducing burnout and increasing site efficiency

Perhaps even more importantly, Trially tackles one of the biggest pain points for clinical research coordinators: manual chart reviews. 

By automating this process, we have been able to reduce manual chart review times by 90%—from an average of 36 hours per month to just 2.5 hours. This shift doesn’t just make trials run smoother, but it reduces administrative burden, alleviates potential burnout, and improves job satisfaction across the board. 

With Trially, EHRs are no longer a bottleneck. They’re a catalyst for faster, more efficient clinical trials, helping research teams enroll the right patients. 

Built by experts, designed for transparency

Trially was created by physicians and data scientists who understand the real challenges of clinical research. That’s why transparency is at the core of our platform. The system also provides detailed match visibility, enabling teams to drill down into inclusion and exclusion criteria with a triple-click function for greater confidence in patient selection. Additionally, seamless integration with any recruitment CRM ensures that sites can easily follow up with candidates and streamline workflows.

Of course, none of this comes at the expense of security. Trially meets the highest industry compliance standards, including HIPAA, SOC 2, FDA 21 CFR Part 11, and ISO 27001, ensuring that patient data remains protected while research teams maximize efficiency.

Transforming EHRs into a catalyst for clinical trial success

Let's face it: the future of EHRs isn’t about working harder…it’s about working smarter.

With Trially, we empower clinical teams to spend less time on data entry and more time on patient care. Whether you’re running complex trials, struggling with manual chart reviews, or simply looking to make your EHR work for you instead of against you, Trially AI is here to help.

Ready to see how much time you could save? Schedule a demo with Trially today and discover how advanced AI can elevate your site recruitment strategy and hit your enrollment goals!